FLARE17: Future FLARES #1

Future FLARES is the strand of FLARE17 that showcases both student work and work in progress from established artists. The two performances today at the Martin Harris Centre are both UK student pieces.

A work of ART: Dead Pig (MMU)

Two men and two women stand naked on stage covered only in white clay. Each has a thick, sticky coloured paste that they let fall from their mouths or scoop from their urn – red, orange, green and blue, Warhol colours. A soundtrack repeats throughout the performance: ‘and so it continued always the same’. They eat apples as if in the Garden of Eden. They reproduce, the colours mix, the purity is lost.

This is performance art, drawing heavily from body painters like Yves Klein, and referencing Pollock and Warhol as well as classical art. The focus is on the men as creators as it has been in classical art, and it is the male relationships that become more important; a shame because there’s a great opportunity to develop the female roles further. Nevertheless a fascinating piece of work from a company that has a real awareness of performance art.

Civilisation: Emma Gannon (Chichester)

Emma Gannon walks slowly onto the stage, her arms covered in blood up to the elbows. This is a monologue about our instinctive reactions to differences between people, drawing on the scientific mechanisms through which our bodies react to stressful and unknown situations. Backed by an effective soundscape there’s enough in the story to maintain interest, and the monologue asks important questions.